The Book of Battles

Zahem

The blanket was whisked off of Dahlan, and he was pulled into consciousness. From being sprawled across the mattress, hugging the pillow, he now sat up naked and looked at Sariah beside him.

“Leave,” the severe man in the black robe who held the stripped blanket in his arms said and the girl, grabbing her nightgown, sped out of the room.

“Get out of my apartments before I have you flogged!” Dahlan demanded, standing up and reaching for his dressing gown.

“You cannot have the High Priest flogged.”

“And you,” Dahlan said, “cannot enter the House of the Prophet and issue commands.”

“The Prophet should not be plowing his way through the palace staff. That is not the way of the Prophet.”

“Enough,” Dahlan said, taking a hand through his hair. He went to ring the bell by his bed and call to his guards, but the High Priest said, “Before you do that, you might hear me out.”

“Speak and speak quickly,” Dahlan told him, “and then never be so presumptuous again.”

“We are a land with enemies,” Phineas said. “Enemies within and always enemies without. The Rebels are all through this land, not to mention those within the Faithful who would bend the Faith to their will. What we need is a strong Prophet, not a boy who takes maids into his bed and plows them all night because he can. The office of Prophet must be seen as holy.”

“Are you through?” Dahlan asked him.

“I am.”

“Good,” Dahlan told him. “I am not unaware that the High Priest is never my ally. Ever since the days of the first High Priest, when you all rose to fill the vacuum left by a weak Prophet, you have been seeking to do the same when every Prophet comes to power. I presume you seek to do it with me.”

“I seek to serve,” Phineas said.

“Well, then seek to obey,” Dahlan told him. “I will see that the guards understand by the end of the day you are by no means allowed into this palace, and certainly not into my quarters without my express permission.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Phineas’s eyes narrowed.  “You are the youngest Prophet we have had in a long time, but traditionally, when one has come to the Mantle so young, having not risen through the Council of the Young and the Elders, never having learned the proper working of things, he has met an untimely end. Never forget Aradahn Snow. He was twenty, five years your senior, when he became the Prophet, and he found himself imprisoned, strangled and left dead down south in Vahoras. For sixteen years my ancestor, Entathen, sat in power while we all waited for another Prophet to be born.”

Dahlan was not sure if what passed over him now was fear or rage, but at that moment he struck the bell and he said, “That is not the end of the story, of course. Entathen was one of the most powerful High Priests ever. He even overshadowed the reign of the new Prophet once he was found. He and his sons were great powers in the land. Some even say they had a hand in the death of the Prophet Lemuel. Ah, but when Jayson came, the Prophet Reborn, he said he was sure Entathen had had a hand in the death of Aradahn Snow. Do you remember how Entathen died?”

As the doors opened and the guard entered the large room, Phineas said, “All of the House or A’run remember Entathen was killed.”

“He was crucified,” Dahlan said, “on Vahoras Hill, the same place he had left Aradahn Snow—”

“We do not know if he killed Aradahn—”

“He did,” Dahlan said. “And Entathen, and his sons, were crucified upside down, on the hottest day of the year. His wife, all of the women of that family, the children even, were blood atoned at Jayson’s command, and Vahoras Hill ran red that day.

“Guard,” Dahlan said, “Now that the High Priest and I have reminded each other of history, lead him from my chambers, and the next time he enters this palace without my knowledge will be the last day you live.”

Skabelund was surprised when word reached him that he was desired by the new Prophet, and on his way to Dahlan’s quarters, he was surprised again to see Brother Allman apparently in the same route. They did not speak, but nodded one to the other, and then entered the great lobby and wound their way to the offices of the Prophet.

The boy had never seemed very earnest, and Skabelund was surprised to see that, though he still had the thick hair that fell into his face, in his black robe, Dahlan—the Prophet after all—was sitting at a great desk, examining papers while being consulted by the mayor of the palace.

“You are here,” Dahlan said when they entered, and when he rose, both Skabelund and Allman went to one knee.

“Leave us,” Dahlan said to the mayor, though it was more a request than a command.

The round faced man nodded, and turned to leave after genuflecting, while Skabelund and Allman both murmured as Dahlan walked around the desk, “Prophet. Prophet.”

“Rise,” Dahlan said.

The mayor had shut the door, and Dahlan said, “I have to establish a council for myself.”

“There is already a council established,” Elder Allman said.

“We don’t have time for this,” Dahlan said. “I am a young Prophet. I need men loyal to me and not to the old system or to the High Priest or to themselves. Allman, are you loyal to me?”

“Of course I am!” the flat faced man declared. “You know since you were a boy I have always looked after your interest. I and my family.”

“And Erek Skabelund,” Dahlan said, “are you as good of heart as you seem?”

“No man is that, Lord,” Erek said.

“But are you loyal?” Dahlan said. “To me.”

“Yes,” Skabelund said. “Always.”

“And with no false motives, no agenda,” Dahlan added. “I know this about you. Even when you were disappointed in me—and often you were—you always had my best interest at heart.”

“And the best interest of our people,” Allman said.

“As do I,” Dahlan told him. “Believe it or not. Brother Allman, because you are the eldest, you will be my chief councilor, Skabelund my Vice Councilor. Together you must assemble my cabinet.”

Skabelund could not hide his surprise, but Allman nodded manfully and said, “Is there anything else you need us to do?”

“Not for now,” Dahlan told him. “The rest is for me to handle.”

 

She looked up from the roses she was was pruning, and was surprised to see Dahlan.

“I am so mortified,” Sariah said.

“Do not be,” Dahlan said. “It is the High Priest who is now mortified.”

“Dahlan, you must be careful. He is the High Priest.”

“And I am the Lord and ruler of Desret,” Dahlan told her, using the sacred name of Zahem. “I am the Prophet. I have let him know fully what will happen if he ever again attempts what he tried today.

“Now,” Dahlan said, after a moment, “if for your honor’s sake you do not want to be seen openly with me in the day, that is understandable. But if you would, I want you to come to me at night.”

“Is it even right?”

“All of the Prophets had wives. They did not live like the White Priests. Men and women need each other in order to be whole, and you are too young to be a wife. I am too young to be a husband. I have thought of this. In old times the Prophets took many wives, joining themselves celestially to many women.”

“And the women?” Sariah said. holding a dead rose. “While you are… celestializing me in the middle of the night?”

Here Dahlan laughed.

“While you are doing that,” Sariah asked, “What of me?”

“I will ask nothing more of you than that you come to me,” Dahlan said.

Then, sounding like a boy again, he leaned in close to her.

“Remember last year? When it first happened? All those times, when we were just stupid kids? Why would you think anything had changed about how I feel?”

“Because you have changed.”

“Prophets have no coronations because technically we were born Prophets. Think of that,” Dahlan raised a playful eyebrow. “The first time, under the rose bushes, you were being celestialized by the Prophet!”

Sariah laughed at this, and then she trembled.

“I always thought,” she said, after a time, “that you were the boy who would be… I never thought of it, not really.”

“Well, then do not think of it now,” Dahlan said. “Come to me tonight. Or let me come to you, alright?”

When Sariah still said nothing, he said, “You do love me. Just a little. At least a little? For this? For what we have had and what we can have?”

“Come to me,” Sariah told him, turning away. “You know where I sleep.”

She went back to gardening, adding, “But for now go back to work. I have things to do. So should you.”